8 February 2017
— more snow!
Good Morning All,
By way of preface to today’s natter: As most of you know, Holly was born six weeks early, probably because I’d been out in the forest splitting some yellow birch the night before. Since I had long ago learned never to say Don’t to my feisty wife, I merely mentioned at breakfast that the split pieces would be fine where they lay until I got back from school the next day. My guess: she was out there before I made it to the main road.
Or maybe it was just that Holly did not want to miss Christmas and did want to share the same decade with her brother Johs. (If just barely: 21 December 1979.)
Whatever. Britta and I had not really begun discussing names yet. Because of the amniocentesis, Britta already knew we were having a little girl, but since I had made it clear I did not want to tempt any fates by knowing, maybe Britta was reluctant to discuss names, lest she give the game away. (As it was, she made only one pronoun slip up when instead of the usual it an overly-compensating he slipped out. I was disappointed; it would have been good to have both a son and a daughter, but I kept that to myself.)
Anyway, because Holly was so jaundiced, the nurses called her Punkin' Pierce. Then Johs, who knew all the English Carols and most of the Danish ones, piped up, “What about Holly, like in Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly.” After which he sang the chorus, in case—since he was particularly enamored of the the Fa-la-lah-la-lah part--we’d missed the first 15,000 times he’d sung it during the previous week.
Britta and I agreed that was a fine idea. A day later, I was out in the forest splitting oak in the late afternoon, and the slanting light on the rock faces and tree limbs lit up the patches of lichen so that they seemed very nearly luminescent. I came in excited, slipped out of coat, and said, “Hey, how about Lichen for her middle name?” That was fine with Johs and Britta, but Britta added, “What about two middle names, so she can have a bit of Denmark with Lyng, which is the Danish word for heather.”
And so it came to pass in those days that Holly Lyng Lichen Pierce she became.
Anyway, because Holly was so jaundiced, the nurses called her Punkin' Pierce. Then Johs, who knew all the English Carols and most of the Danish ones, piped up, “What about Holly, like in Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly.” After which he sang the chorus, in case—since he was particularly enamored of the the Fa-la-lah-la-lah part--we’d missed the first 15,000 times he’d sung it during the previous week.
Britta and I agreed that was a fine idea. A day later, I was out in the forest splitting oak in the late afternoon, and the slanting light on the rock faces and tree limbs lit up the patches of lichen so that they seemed very nearly luminescent. I came in excited, slipped out of coat, and said, “Hey, how about Lichen for her middle name?” That was fine with Johs and Britta, but Britta added, “What about two middle names, so she can have a bit of Denmark with Lyng, which is the Danish word for heather.”
And so it came to pass in those days that Holly Lyng Lichen Pierce she became.
(This is the short version, by the way. The long version takes up the first three pages of her English teacher’s recommendation to Dartmouth.)
Last night while finishing a second glass of South African red before hitting the feathers, I took a final look at today’s Day Book entry, including the photos. When I awoke this morning, I rushed in here to tap out the following before it could fade.
Two Glasses of Red and Off to Bed
Bheka Pierce
Kept summer company by two Canada geese
And their two goslings, sun on our backs,
We are canoeing along a calmer stretch
Of the Pemigewasset south of Plymouth
Where our daughter will one day be born.
Our two-year old son in an orange life vest
Bigger than he is sits between us
Looking around as I tell him to keep
His peepers peeled for we are gliding
Through the heart of moose country.
At a bend in the ripples, we swing close
To the granite face of an ageless boulder
And I see where in a crack just above
The high water line a small fern has found
Verdant life in a thimble of sand.
It seems suddenly the medallions of lichen
Surrounding this tiny fern are telling it
Welcome to the club, and the tall, darker green
Shoreline firs are saying with Australian
Accents, “Way to go, little buddy.”
Sunlight plays on my wife’s lovely back,
My son reaches a finger over to feel the water,
And I, feeling myself so astonishingly alive,
Recognize the rock and fern and firs in a photo
Our daughter Lichen will take decades hence.
Last night while finishing a second glass of South African red before hitting the feathers, I took a final look at today’s Day Book entry, including the photos. When I awoke this morning, I rushed in here to tap out the following before it could fade.
Two Glasses of Red and Off to Bed
Bheka Pierce
Kept summer company by two Canada geese
And their two goslings, sun on our backs,
We are canoeing along a calmer stretch
Of the Pemigewasset south of Plymouth
Where our daughter will one day be born.
Our two-year old son in an orange life vest
Bigger than he is sits between us
Looking around as I tell him to keep
His peepers peeled for we are gliding
Through the heart of moose country.
At a bend in the ripples, we swing close
To the granite face of an ageless boulder
And I see where in a crack just above
The high water line a small fern has found
Verdant life in a thimble of sand.
It seems suddenly the medallions of lichen
Surrounding this tiny fern are telling it
Welcome to the club, and the tall, darker green
Shoreline firs are saying with Australian
Accents, “Way to go, little buddy.”
Sunlight plays on my wife’s lovely back,
My son reaches a finger over to feel the water,
And I, feeling myself so astonishingly alive,
Recognize the rock and fern and firs in a photo
Our daughter Lichen will take decades hence.
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